May 12, 2008 marks the date when an earthquake in the Wenchuan County in the province of Sichuan hit China. This was China’s deadliest earthquake since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. The Sichuan earthquake left devastating consequences leaving 69, 197 dead, 374, 176 injured, 18, 222 missing, 4.2 million homeless.

When a natural disaster such as the Sichuan earthquake takes place, media networks and journalists have to first find eyewitnesses and reporters at the scene.  They then fact check the information and edit out the irrelevant details and then report back to people. This process can take a while.

Twitter served as the fastest and most efficient source to get updates on the Sichuan earthquake. Survivors from the disaster were tweeting in information. The sources seemed reliable as the tweeters were on the scene of the event and seemed to know more information than any of the other networks on television.

Robert Scoble an American blogger and author said “when I couldn’t find any news of the earthquake at CNN or Google News, I went to tweetscan, which allows you to monitor Twitter discussion by keyword.” Survivors would constantly update the people interested in the earthquake. Ana from Wenchuan County tweeted in at 12:21 AM “breathing normal again. Feeling an earthquake from the 31^st floor was not fun.” Twitter was able to spread insight from locals faster than old media.

A lot of the tweeters happened to be tweeting in Mandarin making it impossible for foreign tweeters to understand what was going on in China. People turned to GoogleTranslate for fast and efficient translations for their tweets. Newspapers and broadcasters could not translate and convey information at this speed. People didn’t have to turn to old media; they could just login on twitter and translate tweets for themselves instead of waiting on old media to deliver the information.

However, the credibility of these tweets can easily be questioned. Anybody is able to tweet in at any time. The information is not always reliable, as we do not know who is tweeting in. The credibility of old media is not as questioned. Old media has a whole team of professionals working to make sure that the information they send out is correct and credible. Information is always fact checked and edited but this takes time. Twitter is the best source to receive information quickly.

In the People’s Republic of China Internet censorship is strongly conducted under laws and administrative regulations. The Chinese government wants to censor media and have total control over the flow of information on the Internet. However, civilians have found their own ways around government restrictions. They usually log on through virtual private networks to go around the censors. Most of the civilians that were tweeting in were using a proxy server where they are able to request service to the Internet from a different service.

The Sichuan earthquake represents how effective social media is for spreading fast information. Twitter was able to beat all the established networks in giving out information regarding the earthquake. Twitter is a great source through which people all around the world can interact and share information.

-Hajra Kath

Even after a decade 9/11 seems to one of the most controversial topics, Jenny and Emily kept the sensitivity of the topic in mind during their presentation.  September 11, 2001 marked the date when the United States of America suffered a terrorist attack. Two airplanes crashed into the twin towers, one in the pentagon and the last crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers realized the hijacker’s intentions.

Everyone around the world could not believe what had just happened. People wanted details and fast. With this sudden growth of curiosity among the people, the media evolved.

Television, print, and online media transformed. At the time of 9/11, domestic issues were not the main concern of the news. No one had an interest for it; everyone wanted to know what was going on with the war on terror. People concerned themselves with global issues instead of domestic ones. Crime and federal policy was no longer covered in news channels. News channels, blogs, news websites now all covered the topic of the war on terror.

The evening news suffered a major fall. Everyone in the midst of figuring out what happened, wanted immediate detailed updates. The evening news would cover topics that had been unveiled a few hours earlier by news websites. With increasing traffic on the Internet, not everyone was able to access the news. People started to read blogs for faster information even though a lot of it was biased and inaccurate.

9/11 opened the doors for millions to write and share their thoughts with the world on their opinions and interpretations of the attack. Anyone who had a camera or a video of the event was now able to blog and attract readers. If readers disagreed, they could start their own blogs so their views could be read by the world. A significant amount of blogs increased around the time of 9/11.

The western world seemed to unite and fight together against the terrorists and those who contributed to this attack. They left their flags at half-mast signifying sorrow and their determination to fight at the same time.

War bloggers fluttered around the Internet with the invasion of Afghanistan. Civilians in the regions of Afghanistan expressed their views and perspectives on the war on terror. Many videos regarding 9/11 went viral such as  “I miss you daddy” on youtube regarding the tragic loss of America’s loved ones.

The catastrophic attack on 9/11 certainly did kill thousands of innocent people but the war on terror killed many more. We remember 9/11 as the day when thousands of Americans were killed but we forget to remember each day ever since when millions of innocent people were killed in a war against terrorism. What about those children sitting half way across the world missing their daddies too? War bloggers play an important role as they bring to light that the war on terrorism uses terror as its greatest weapon. War bloggers allow readers to look at things from a completely different perspective.